Firefighters as vaccinators

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Fire & Emergency Resilience

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As the efforts to vaccinate people are ramped up across the country, FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin takes a look at fire and rescue services’ evolving response to the Covid-19 pandemic

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‘We ask you to find as many volunteers across your service as possible and to encourage them to support mass testing and vaccination efforts across the country’

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Firefighters as vaccinators?

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his is the clarion call from the Home Secretary and Fire Minister, writing to chief fire officers last month. It is an upbeat letter with plenty of recognition of the efforts by fire and rescue services to support their local communities in the myriad ways set out in the tripartite agreements and beyond. It concludes: ‘I know you will do all you can to ensure fire and rescue services play their part in responding to [the pandemic]. On behalf of the British people, we thank you’. The timing is interesting, as will become clear below. Getting involved in the roll-out of vaccinations is the latest in a series of Covid-related activities carried out by firefighters and other Fire and Rescue Service employees. It puts them squarely in the centre of the enormous efforts to get the UK back up and running to some semblance of normality. Anticipating approval of the vaccines, the National Fire Chiefs Council made it clear in November 2020 that they were fully supportive of firefighters assisting the roll-out. With the government allowing non-healthcare professionals to get involved, it meant that when the The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved the Pfizer, Oxford and Moderna vaccines through December and January, the Fire and Rescue Service could help right from the start.

The Sun newspaper celebrated the inclusion of fire and rescue services in its inimitable style with the headline: ‘Pfizer Man Sam – Firefighters will help roll-out 1 million Covid vaccines A DAY in record breaking NHS push’. It was accompanied by a picture of Fireman Sam holding a hypodermic needle. On December 9, a new agreement between the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and the Fire Service employers allowed firefighters to assist in the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine. An FBU news release said: ‘The latest agreement is initially in place until January, to ensure that brigades comply with all safety measures with a view to extension beyond that’. Throughout December, there was a review of the risk assessments required for the new activity. By mid-January, it all changed. While fire and rescue services shared what they were doing to assist the vaccination roll-out, the FBU announced on January 15: ‘Fire and rescue services have unilaterally scrapped a ground-breaking agreement with the FBU which had enabled firefighters to assist the NHS and care sector response to Covid-19’. The National Employers sent a Circular (EMP/1/21) to fire and rescue authorities two days before the FBU announcement. It said intensive discussions had been

“It is an epic ambition to vaccinate everyone in the country and the Fire and Rescue Service should be at the centre of the effort to get this done” www.fire–magazine.com  |  February 2021  |  15


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Firefighters as vaccinators by Elginfire Consulting - Issuu